Say you’ve already done the math and expect to claim itemized deductions on your 2024 federal income tax return.
Strategy: Scour your records for deductible expenses. If you unearth a few nuggets here and there, you can potentially lower your tax liability. Although everyone’s situation is different, here are five common situations that might fall through the cracks.
1. Book a charitable deduction. Suppose you represent a charitable organization at a meeting in a distant location. You travel to the meeting on your own dime. As a result, you can deduct various costs—including airfare, lodging and meals—while performing charitable functions. If you go by car, you can write off your vehicle expenses attributable to charitable travel or use the standard mileage rate of 14 cents per mile (plus charitablerelated tolls and parking fees). Tip: To deduct charitable convention costs, you must be a designated delegate.
2. Carve out a tax break. You can deduct annual medical expenses above7.5% of your adjusted gross income (AGI). This includes expenses paid on behalf of yourself, your spouse and dependents like your children and elderly relatives. Example: You have an in-ground pool installed primarily so your child can swim to alleviate their asthma. Therefore, you can count the cost of the home improvement (less the increase in your home’s value) as a deductible medical expense. Tip: Add in pool maintenance and cleaning expenses.
3. Salvage a disaster loss. Currently, you can’t deduct casualty and theft losses on your personal 2024 return. The usual deduction is suspended until 2026. However, if you suffered a property loss in 2024 in a geographic area formally designated as a federal disaster area, new legislation allows you to deduct the unreimbursed loss without regard to the usual threshold of 10% of your AGI (after subtracting $500 instead of $100 per event), even if you don’t itemize. Tip: You can benefit from faster tax relief on disaster-area losses (see box).
4. Point to mortgage interest. Under current law, interest paid on acquisition debt of up to $750,000 that is secured by your principal residence and up to one other home is deductible as qualified residence interest. But you may have paid one or more “points” on a loan in 2024 to refinance and obtain a more favorable interest rate. Each point is equal to 1 percent of the mortgage balance. Points paid on a refinanced mortgage are deductible ratably over the term of the loan.
5. Give a positive tax verdict. Did you get tapped for jury duty in 2024? Typically, your employer may pay your regular salary while you’re out of work, but you must turn over the jury duty pay received for your service. Of course, your salary is still taxable, but you can deduct the jury duty payments to your employer. This deduction is available whether you itemize or not!
Tip: Employer-paid reimbursements for transportation, parking fees and meals are taxexempt